The changing impact of conjugal status and motherhood on employment across generations of Canadian women

Philippe Pacaut, Céline Le Bourdais, Benoît Laplante

Abstract

We use event history analysis and retrospective data from the 2001 General Social Survey to study the changing relationships between conjugal life and motherhood and the employment behaviour of Canadian women who were born between 1937 and 1976. Our results show thedecreasing importance of marriage to explain the rhythm of entry and return into the labour market among younger generations of women. However, marriage still appears to increase the rate of work interruption for those who had started working. The effect of motherhood on the key stages of women’s working lives was also found to vary across generations.